Perhaps nothing in the philosophy of mind causes more confusion and unnecessary controversy than the failure to distinguish subject and object. When we discuss 'consciousness' or 'mind', are we talking about the subject or about objects? Equivocation is rampant in the current literature, and insures that the mind/body problem remains impenetrable.
Two distinctions are commonly conflated: mind/body and subject/object. The conflation generates an ambiguity in the meanings of the very terms 'mind' and 'consciousness' before analysis even begins. The ambiguity leads to equivocation-the shift of a term's meaning during the process of reasoning. In this case the shift is that 'mind' and 'consciousness' are used to refer sometimes to objects and sometimes to the subject, often in the same context or argument, without the shift being noticed.
Descartes' mind/body distinction remains fundamental to the contemporary discussion even though few contemporary philosophers and scientists are substance dualists. We still have, on the one hand, mind (sometimes called-in the interests of analytic tractability-mental events, mental states, or mental properties), and, on the other, body or matter (events in, states of, or properties of, the brain). The mind-body problem is taken to be the problem of how to conceptualize, describe, and account for the evident relationships between these two categories of phenomena.
But the distinction between subject and object is more fundamental than the distinction between mind and matter. For purposes of this discussion, let the term 'object' refer to anything anyone might be aware of or pay attention to. The term refers, then, not only to 'physical' objects, including whatever material processes, states, or conditions one might discriminate, but also to such 'mental' or immaterial entities or processes as pains, sensations, memories, images, dreams and daydreams, emotions, thoughts, plans, numbers, concepts, moods, desires and so on. Whatever we may think about their ontological or empistemological status in other respects, I hope we can agree at least that any of these may be objects of attention or pass in and out of awareness.
Let the term 'subject' refer to I-who-am-aware, whatever opinion we may hold of what that 'I' may be. I hope that, no matter what various opinions we may hold, we can all also agree that: (1) I, subject, can be aware of some object; (2) I can focus awareness in attention; and (3) I can distinguish myself from the object I attend to.
Here a crucial point should be emphasised. The distinction between subject and object, and our capacity to make that distinction, is prior to any particular opinion or theory about what either the subject or the object may be. Another way to make the point is to say that we make the same distinction, and make it the same way, regardless of what we may think we believe about the nature of the self or consciousness and their relation to the world. Yet another way to put it is to say that the distinction is not made on merely conceptual grounds. Any time you are aware of some object, or attend to some object, you won't have any trouble distinguishing it from yourself. That is, you're likely to know, immediately, without having to stop and think it over, or having to collect any evidence, which is you and which is the object. You can distinguish yourself as subject from any object whatsoever ('physical' or 'mental') any time you direct your attention to that object and realize that it is you who are aware and who pay attention, not the object. The real nature of the object and the real nature of the subject may be baffling mysteries to us, but these mysteries are no barrier whatever to knowing which is obviously which.
Philosophical uncertainties arise, to be sure, once we try theorizing about the distinction, when we attempt definitions of 'subject' and 'object' on some theoretical basis, without grounding them in the distinction we actually make. For example, I may hold the opinion that I, the subject, am a biological organism, and that my hand is part of me. I conceive the subject as a thing which exists in the world and which has parts. The object is conceived as part of this constructed 'subject', and so the situation is interpreted as the subject being aware of part of itself. But this is merely a conception adopted in the creation of some theory. The distinction itself is prior to this or any other theory. We get into trouble if we approach an investigation of the distinction having already prematurely defined 'subject' and 'object' in terms of some theory or other. We know the distinction not in theory, but by actually making it.
If we rigorously and systematically discriminate subject and object often enough, long enough, and on sufficiently various occasions, it is likely to dawn on us sooner or later that the subject is not an object. The subject is not any particular object or any combination of objects. The chief barrier to drawing this conclusion is conceptual. That is, our models of reality may impose constraints on empirical investigation. We get attached to our models, particularly if we have worked hard on them, and we may want to avoid looking in a direction which threatens them.
Issues at the core of current consciousness debates are variations of the problem of subjectivity, such as the 'hard problem', the problem of other minds, and the zombie problem. Progress on these issues would seem to presuppose some understanding of the subject/object distinction. The proposition that the subject is not an object has radical implications for current tendencies in the philosophy of mind or consciousness studies. It means that 'consciousness' is not to be identified with, or explained in terms of, any entities or processes to be found as objects of attention in the world. It means that any attempt to understand 'consciousness' as a property of some kind-whether a property of systems or a property of states-is fundamentally misguided.
Mait Edey
MaitEdey@aol.com
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